11st Battle ( Advance - 49 turn - visibility 37 )
Battle plan:
The area was snow, the Russian zone was mostly forest with a big clear zone at the rear. The approach avenue was a clear area dominated by a hill, at the south there was a road going from west to east. The south objective was inside a forest near the road, the central one was in a clear behind the forest over a small hill. The last one was at the north also inside a forest.
The plan was advance through the central area with the three infantry companies preceded by our recon force, A and B at the front and C 200 meters behind. They had to use the hill to cover their advance as much as possible. As usual the idea was overwhelm the defenders concentrating all our force at one point.
One platoon of the C company on light trucks plus two motorbikes had to infiltrate through the south border, their target was seek and destroy the enemy artillery.
Tanks was the reserve.
Two spotters planes were available.
Go:
Our advance was preceded by a recon flight of our planes, at the center three Matildas II were located supported by some infantry squads. Immediately most of our artillery was plotted over them.
Meanwhile our infantry slowly advanced through the snow, HMG were deployed at our rear and start firing over the enemy infantry, also our snipers were doing their job quite well. Surprisingly enemy infantry didn't fly as soon as they had a few casualties like in the previous battles. Later on we discovered that they were part of a Guards division.
After few rounds one Matilda II was destroyed, the other two were immobilized, a few meters at the north one T-34 was also detected, artillery fire was shifted over him.
One scout patrol and one sniper were ordered to check the presence of enemy at the road. They found a few infantry units, mortars were ordered to take care of them.
Also the infiltration team advanced undetected, doing a big encirclement reached the enemy rear. Motorbikes went ahead trying to find the enemy artillery but they came under HMG fire. It seemed impossible to keep advancing so light trucks were diverted to a group of houses next to the road and unloaded the infantry platoon. New orders were sent to the them, first clear the road to bring reinforcement at the enemy rear faster, second advance towards the south objective.
At the center infantry was reaching the Matildas, a smoke curtain was laid to allow infantry close distance and assault the tanks, after engaging and routing the remaining enemy infantry next to the tanks those were destroyed.
Our infiltration team successfully cleared the road and, after a short fight, controlled the south target. Light trucks were sent to move more troops through the road, also our tanks were ordered to advance through it and support the infiltration team, they easily destroyed the HMG which stopped our infiltration.
With this reinforcements our infiltration team grow to a small task force, they advanced towards the central victory objective. A small counterattack leaded by a few T-60 light tanks was launched by the enemy. Our own armor take care of them without losses.
At the central area two more T-34 were detected, one was abandoned after being it by artillery fire, the other one was close assaulted by infantry and destroyed.
Now all our force was advancing, but it was to slow due the snow terrain, any vehicle was used to speed up our movement, even AT-gun tractors were used to transport infantry to the front line.
Finally our troops reached the central victory objective, enemy had placed two At-guns covering the area which wasn't detected. We lost two tanks and another one was badly damage, crews survived. Our artillery was fired over the enemy guns destroying one and routing the crew of the other. At same time the enemy HQ was found and destroyed by our infantry.
In a final effort our men reached the third objective, just a few infantry squads were defending it, they were overwhelm and the objective captured.
Decisive victory for us !!
Post Battle thoughts:
The main difficulty of the battle was the terrain, being mostly an infantry force with few carriers snow heavily penalized our maneuver capacity, most of time our men were just moving forward closing the distance with the enemy.
My infiltration platoon has failed his main mission which was destroy the enemy artillery, a few HMG forced to abort the original plan. An armored car could be ideal to support them but we don't have any. I am thinking in using my light tanks in this role but due their relative big size doesn't seem like a good infiltrator. In any case the platoon mission was changed on the way archiving a great success with the new orders.